


Tale of a Wildling and Gerudo Voe

by WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Calamity Ganon, Wild Child Link
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26586493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck/pseuds/WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck
Summary: Please Note: This is just an outline!!!...........................Three hundred years prior to the events of BOTW, Ganon and Link knew each other. They were friends, but that is not the will of the goddess. Hylia and Demise could not express their disgust.  So in the end, they devised a plan to ensure each complete their normal rolls.
Relationships: Link/Ganondorf
Comments: 1
Kudos: 58





	Tale of a Wildling and Gerudo Voe

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this is just an outline of sorts! It's just something I will never actually take the time to write but thought would be fun to share. That being said, if anyone wants to use this AU, run wild. Go for it!

Three hundred and more years prior to the era in which the hero falls, a male Gerudo was born. History was skewed, much lost from wars and time, and that shared by tongue called a male Gerudo a sign of the end. The Gerudo knew what he would become, but how could a mother, his people, punish him for crimes he had yet to commit? Rather than abandoned him to the sand storms, he and his mother were banished, all in hopes that with no connections he could never charm his way to leading the Gerudo to war. What was a destined king without subjects? 

It is a lonely upbringing. Outside of his people, a male Gerudo was an omen, and it led to many fights. He traveled constantly, forced out of towns and villages the older he grew and the harder it was to hide he was pretend to be just another vai, and fights in markets of Hylians calling him thief and Gorons ready to kick him out before he even finished ordering lunch became his normal.

It’s split lips and bloody noses and black eyes, so many black eyes, that Ganon decided enough is enough. He made a beeline for Gerudo Town, ready to overthrow the chieftain and take his rightful place, except his off-road shortcut was anything but. He entered a forest, one that seemed to have no end and no concept of direction. He swore he heard giggles as he passed the same boulder four times, or maybe the forest simply looked all the same, but then his onlooker wasn’t even trying to hide his laughter. He drew his sword, demanding whoever mocked him to show themselves. 

He looked up, noticing the dangling feet on a low branch and the boy hiding his smile behind his hand. It’s a boy with blond hair worn long and tied back messily. His clothes smelt of magic even from their distance, leaves and flowers sewn directly into the tunic and held together with string. He wore a tree nut of sorts around his neck tied to a string, tiny snail shells lined his ankle and ultimately he wasn’t anything like the Hylians he’d met in any town. A wild child.

Asking for directions led to the wildling guiding him until coming across a camp of monsters. The boy groaned that they’d entered his forest again, and Ganon, who’d been standoffish, decided to fight alongside them. The wildling is good with a bow, and Ganon’s sword ward off any thinking they’re smart by charging them. When it was over, they rested by a stream and talked about themselves. The wildling was raised by the great fairy of the forest, and he loved said forest like it was an extension of himself. His name was Link. Ganon only said he was a traveler and doesn’t stick around anywhere long. He should get going. Link led him to the edge of the forest and waved him goodbye. . . Then he asked if he’ll see Ganon again. He said yes. Ganon never goes to Gerudo Town. 

They keep seeing each other, Ganon stayed the evening in the forest in a ratty bedroll until Link offered him furs. They laid in the old tree he made into a home in its trunk. It’s cozy, with plush furs and flowers and vines lacing the walls. Collected antlers from bucks took up the ceiling and jostled softly from the evening’s draft. Ganon had never felt more at peace, not afraid of someone tearing through the front door or thieves mugging him. 

He kept coming back and Hylia and Demise watched in horror as their chosen have yet to kill the other. Their war across surface history between them must continue. They fear each other, fear what will happen to their chosen when they have let their guard down. So they devised their own plans, meddling, to try to ensure their chosen survives and the other dies. 

Their anger is only fueled further when Ganon next met Link in the forest near a lake. They’re nestled on a boulder and Link pointed out the fairies between the fireflies and the koroks playing with Ganon’s cloak he’d left on the shore. It’s magical. The boy is magical and perfect and Ganon wished the moment never ends. They spoke openly, Ganon speaking of his hardships as a child and being an outcast to not only his people but unwelcomed elsewhere. Link, too, told him of a father that did not want him. He was raised by the great fairy in this forest and knew not of the world outside. Ganon promised to take him, that they could go together. His heart swelled as Link cherished the Gerudo’s calloused hands like they’re delicate, and Link’s held that palm as it cupped his cheek. They each don’t want the moment to end. 

Their power came in a storm and natural disasters. Hylia brought the winds and lightning as the Demon King carried in reckless monsters and encouraged her anger until a wildfire started. Ganon was heading out to check on his mother, supposed to pass a cliff side where the storm would loosen rock and drown him in its rubble. 

But then the scent of ash and sight of smoke had him turning around and heading into the forest in search of Link. It’s a race against time to run out of the forest. Link’s tree was ablazed, animals ran, others succumbed to smoke, and he found Link trying to navigate animals out of the forest until he simply had to abandon them where they cried out trapped between too steep hills. Link’s crying as they ran, their hands locked and begging the other to not let go.

Then they get to the point. The cliff side, and Hylia will not lose. The earth shook and lightning hid most of its sound from the Gerudo. If Link hadn’t been looking up at Ganon, he would have not have noticed, would not have been able to push the larger man out of the way of the thunderous boulder that took Link’s last breath. 

Link was killed. 

Demise had won. He thought there was nothing left to stop Ganon’s rise to power, to force the Hylians to their knees and take his rightful place. 

But Ganon spent the entire night digging through rubble to find the body, to carry Link somewhere far from destruction, to bury Link in a place lush with life in the Faron Region. And when he did, Ganon did not leave his side, unable to make himself stand. He wanted to be buried next to him. 

So Demise revealed himself and spoke to Ganon as a snake, demanding an explanation for why he isn’t getting revenge on a world that forced them to seek refuge in a forest away from civilization. Ganon spoke of love. Demise demanded anger, expected burning hatred to destroy those that forced Link and Ganon to choose isolation that ultimately killed them.

Ganon was still not willing to be the monster just yet and Demise realized he must make a deal. Hylia is afraid and desperate. The Demon King however realized he will not play the role he wants him to unless Link lives. He offered to reincarnate Link only if Ganon kept a promise. It’s soul binding, and Ganon would do anything to let Link live a full life, to be carefree and bring joy to those around him once more. Demise explained very simply that the day hatred boils over in Ganon, his mind and body would be relinquished to the demon. Ganon thought nothing could ever drive him to such a state. Link taught him to give up anger and spite, to feel pity for those that judged them.

Demise told him in three hundred years, Link would reincarnate, and upon reaching the age of his death, he would remember Ganon. It would be enough time for Demise to influence, to ensure it worked as he wanted, not that Ganon knew. Ganon was only told that he must wander, wander for three hundred years until Link is to be born.

And so he does, never settling. Even after his mother’s early death, disease taking her quick, he lived on past the Gerudo lifespan. He figured it to be a part of the snake’s deal, so Link and him could be together again.

Link was born to a knight and an unfaithful wife in a small town. The wandering Gerudo had only stepped in for supplies, wondering if the dye shop in Hateno would fix his cloak stained from dirt and grime, chuchu jelly in others. A little boy with Link’s smile asked him why he was so tall, eyes just as wide and kind as Ganon remembered. 

He did not remember Ganon, but that’s alright. He’s too young for this weird Gerudo to stick around. The snake said his memories would return when he reached the age he died. His sister died weeks before his father sent him off to live with the Zora. He pulled the sword a year later, age twelve, and Link all but disappeared. He tried not to think much of it. He gets to live a complete life. He gets a second chance for a full life of laughter and happiness. 

But then the next time he heard of Link, saw Link, he no longer smiled, no longer spoke. He is not the wild child of the forest, but a soldier that stared too intently, saw danger in every corner, and duty bore down on his shoulders in the shape of the sword. What happened to the boy he loved? He saw how Zelda spoke to him, how the other soldiers ignored him, as Ganon hid closely to Castle Town. He heard of the Rito that called the Hylian weak and the Goron that told him not to hold it against the little guy like Link was sensitive pebble. He knew the Zora held no allegiance with the Hylians. Even the Gerudo, his own birth place, were bound not in trust of his Link’s skill, but by a friendship of the late queen. There was no love, no faith, and his Link was drowning before his very eyes, dragged by the chain of duty so the princess could pray and pray to a goddess that did nothing for Ganon's Link the first time around.

Ganon’s three hundred years of peace cracked.

That anger, the boiling hatred towards the crown opened the floodgates for Demise to possess him, warp his mind and make him the same being to get Link killed once more, this time as the essence of Calamity, the most raw version of Demise since the beginning. Fires swept through Hyrule fields, energy coarsed through him, _was him._ He bled his power into machines that slept dormant beneath the castle, and when he felt the husk of the divine beast, their pilots who thought his Link weak were not there to control them and they were easy pickings. His anger, his malice, took physical forms that slayed them the moment they stepped into what they thought were the only places safe from him. That's what his Link had thought, playing in that forest and afraid of the world beyond. That did not stop the fires that forced them out.

He raged, he cried out. He wanted the castle to burn to the ground, for the Gerudo to lose themselves to sandstorms and be wiped from the map for good, for the Goron to drown in their own heat and the Zora to be swept to sea-- just to leave him be, to know what it was like to lose everything, to lose their only place of comfort.

Zelda entered the castle on her own, injured and dirt on her face carrying the master sword, the sword itself is sick with his malice and not carried by his beloved, and he realized Link was dead. Link had been killed once more, whether it be by guardians or another landslide. Link was gone before his memory could return to him. Ganon killed his Link. He did not fight Zelda’s sealing power, trying to hold back the sickness that plagued him, made him a beast. Demise screamed inside him, trying to pour out. 

Time skip and Link woke with no memories a hundred years later. But upon killing Calamity Ganon, he knows. Link reached the age that he had first been killed, and everything flooded back. The nights under the fireflies, blessing like the fairies taught him, the night on the large boulder in the middle lake after racing to it, each sopping wet and hearts racing, pouring their hearts out of secrets never told not because they were so private, but because there was never anyone there to tell. It all came back while riding a horse wary from their journey up to this point, the light bow in hand, and the boar-like beast crying out for death. Ganon begged him. He could hear it. He begged him to end it, to free him, to let him rest, to let this be the apology of being fooled. The final arrow was notched, and Link was crying as Zelda sealed away Demise once and for all. As he did so, Link spotted the wisp, a glow of ghost and before him, for only a moment, was Ganon. He looked healthy, older than he remembered and his smile weary.

 _“I’ll wait a thousand years for you if I have to.”_

It was the last time he saw Ganon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Again, if someone wants to use any of this for a fic? Go for it. I just wanted to throw out this outline I'll never take the time to write.


End file.
